Kobe Bryant Had A Stunning Quote About Phil Jackson Never Preaching Defense

The biggest knock on new Los
Angeles Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni throughout his coaching
career is that his teams don't play any defense. D'Antoni
preaches an uptempo offensive scheme that critics claim throws
defensive ambition to the wayside.

Prior to last season, D'Antoni's teams never finished better than
23rd in the league in scoring defense. In those nine seasons,
there was only one team that allowed less than 100 points per
game.

"I mean Phil's been here, and -- to be honest with you -- we
might have, in all the years I've been with Phil, (had)
maybe three defensive drills the entire time. And I'm
not understating it at all. But his philosophy was always --
you guys need to figure it out on your own. And that's
what made him a phenomenal coach, was that he was able
to sit back and trust the process and trust players to
communicate with each other."

If there's one thing that we've learned about Bryant from this
whole thing, it's that he's not one for structure. Bryant was
excited that Bernie Bickerstaff was giving the players more room
to operate after Brown's Princeton offense was pushed aside when
he was fired.

Now, Bryant's saying that he thought the best part about Jackson
was that he gave the player's a lot of responsibility, at least
on the defensive end. If that's the case, D'Antoni's flexibility
compared to Brown's highly structured approach should resonate
with Kobe.